Thursday, 7 July 2016

This year The Knitting &Crochet Guild Convention took place on the first weekend in July on the Endcliffe Village Campus of the University of Sheffield. It was an excellent weekend with many highlights. Most of all it was a wonderful chance to catch up with Guild members and be completely absorbed in knitting and crochet for three consecutive days!

Along with a large group of other delegates, I arrived the day before the Convention so that we could visit the Guild's Collection, near Holmfirth on the Friday. I had never visited Lee Mills, the home of the Collection before, but have always enjoyed seeing items at Knitting Shows and through Trunk Show presentations by Barbara and Angharad. As there were a substantial group of us, the Collections Team split us into four groups to ensure we got a close look at everything.

First stop for my group was Barbara, showing us publication highlights. The Guild Collection contains 1,200 catalogued books and approximately 50,000 pattern leaflets as well as the Patons Archive. Barbara had prepared a great overview and my favourite book was The Stitchery Annual from 1913, edited by Flora Klickmann, with its beautiful cover and gorgeous illustrations.

On stop number two, Angharad presented us with a wide selection of garments and accessories from all over the British Isles, from gainsay sweaters to fair isle shawls and from aran jumpers to rare gloves from the Yorkshire Dales. These beautiful Dent gloves were dated 1910 and were most likely "knitted for best" as they are in such great condition.

The Knitting& Crochet Guild Collection
Close up of 1910 Yorkshire Dales gloves

Maureen's presentation began with her taking the top off an old shell canister to reveal that it was full of knitting needles! The canister and needles had been donated to the Guild, but there was little information about the owner. Cataloguing information had to be worked out by the approximate date of the canister and the materials used to make the needles. This was a great example illustrating the kind of social history clues that the Lee Mills team use to date items n the Collection. Another section of the knitting equipment collection includes a huge number of needle gauges and a clue for dating these items is the conversion from imperial to metric systems in the early 1970s. Some of the gauges also have yarn company logos and magazine names printed on them.

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Collection
Needle Gauges

The Guild visits many knitting and crochet shows throughout the year and our stand is always decorated with a theme. This year we are focusing on colour work. In our last presentation at Lee Mills, Julia showed us her design development for the boards that will be used on the stands. Each board relates to a season and Julia has selected stitch patterns from lots of items in the collection to create beautiful borders, birds, animals and scenery. I really enjoyed hearing about all the work Julia put into the boards and how she selected the designs. This innovative way to promote colour work had us all guessing which part of which design came from which garment!

The Knitting & Crochet Guild
Autumn Display Board

Thank you very much to the whole Collection Team for making our visit so informative and inspiring. We'll all be looking out for more opportunities to visit again.

Members of The Knitting & Crochet Guild Collection Team

We returned to the University for the formal welcome and introduction to the Conference, followed by two breakout sessions before dinner. Delegates explored "How to host a trunk show" with Angharad and "Turning a group into a Guild Branch" with Barbara.

Our Conference dinner was held at Halifax Hall on the Campus and after our meal we were delighted to hear from our keynote speaker, Susan Crawford. Along with other Conference delegates, I have been following Susan's amazing work over the years. In particular, her current project on Vintage Shetland Knitting has generated a huge amount of excitement in the world of knitting! The crowdfunding for the Vintage Shetland project was so oversubscribed that Susan has been able to add more information, detail and images to the book of the project than she had originally planned. Susan told us about her long-held passion for Shetland knitting and about the challenges she faced in recreating these stunning garments. Her husband's system for translating the data she gathered from the archive garments into new charts and a virtual knitted fabric was really clever. There were gasps from the audience when Susan revealed some of the stunning finished garments. Each one had a very interesting story and it was fascinating to hear how much work had gone into getting each one just right. Thank you so much to Susan for this personal insight into the project and the chance to look closely at the garments. I can't wait for my book to arrive in mid August!

The second day of the Conference began with a very colourful talk by Nic Rudd about her journey from full time teacher to indie yarn dyer as "Yarns from the Plain". This is the Cheshire Plain and Nic uses lots of local names for her yarns. Her yarn range includes a special blend by John Arbon that is made up of Exmoor Blueface and Alpaca and has a very soft feel. Beautiful scarves made in Nics Yarn were passed around the room including a lovely design that was on the cover of Inside Crochet. Nic said that she probably should streamline the colours she produces, but she is inspired by so many different things that she frequently feels like a kid in a sweet shop when it comes to colour choices! Look out for Nic and her lovely yarns over the next few months at Shows all over the country.

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016

Nic Rudd, Yarns from the Plain

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016

Yarns from the Plain Crochet Scarf

Our AGM in the late morning took care of the formal business of the weekend.The Guild currently has 29 active branches and our membership recently increased by over 30%, with new members joining from all over the world. Our 763 members all receive Slipknot, our Guild publication. Slipknot has recently been updated and reformatted and now includes colour photos as well as lots of interesting articles and news items by members. The Yarn Shop Scheme is also expanding. Fiona has written to over 200 yarn shops to tell them about the Guild and encourage them to join. So far 25 have signed up and Fiona is actively looking to expand our links to many more.

The AGM was followed by a very helpful session on "how to get the best out of the Guild's Facebook page". Rebecca and the Guild's Facebook moderating team, Marion, Jacqui and Lin lead us all through the main points, from logging on, to sharing photos and this was much appreciated by delegates.

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016

KCG Facebook Moderating Team

The Guild Convention is known for hosting a great selection of workshops and this year was no exception. Five excellent workshops ran during the afternoon, covering a variety of knitting and crochet techniques and, from the positive feedback afterwards, all delegates enjoyed themselves. I certainly enjoyed the Möbius knitting workshop that was run by Sarah Cage. Sarah had brought some of her own möbius knits for us to see, including a fascinating hat design. She also provided us with great handouts on the möbius technique, focusing on the critical cast on. The other workshops were Two colour double knitting with Fiona Morris; Advanced Tunisian crochet with Lindy Zubairy; Shawl design (crochet) with Ann Flanagan; Victorian knitting patterns with Lesley O'Connell Edwards. Barbara has blogged about Lesley's workshop and you can read her post here.

My favourite part of the convention was the Show and Tell. This year delegates had brought along an amazing selection of fabulous knitting and crochet. Unfortunately it was a bit dark in the bar area for photographs, but I hope that the photos below show some of the wide range of skills we have amongst our members.

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016
Show and Tell

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016
Show and Tell

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016
Show and Tell

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Convention 2016
Show and Tell

Sunday morning began with a very interesting presentation by Zoe Fletcher. Zoe's research for her PhD, "Designing for Breed" is all about promoting British Breeds in the world of design and pushing the perception of British wool from coarse and itchy to luxurious. Having collected samples of 72 pure breed sheep fibres, along with SEM imaging scans for them all, Zoe has created a database using Shima Seiki 3D knitting technology. This allows virtual knitted samples to be mapped onto body shapes for a realistic finished garment look. Zoe's beautiful illustrations nd user-friendly designs are integral to her PhD and her aim to communicate the properties of each individual type of sheep fleece in a way that encourages wide-spread use. Lots of us also took the chance to buy one of her lovely sheep breed posters.

Our second set of workshops began mid morning and again, it had been hard to choose which one to do! Although I have designed several wraps, I always want to learn more about design techniques and was therefore delighted to be in the Shawl Design workshop lead by Ann and Katie. This workshop was a great example of collaboration within the Guild. Ann and Katie had never met before the Convention, but as they both have lots of Shawl knitting knowledge, they had decide to do a joint workshop. The planning took place via email and Skype and the resulting workshop was a great success. They started us all on a miniature Stonington Shawl sample and then shared some of their own amazing shawls with us. We looked at several different kinds of shawl construction in different weights of yarn and at a range of books and publications. I really enjoyed this workshop and once again, have learned very useful new techniques. The other workshops running at the same time were Mitred Squares with Anne Scahil; Double Filet Crochet with Barbara Mann; New Approaches to Fair Isle knitting with Rita Taylor and Broomstick Crochet with Helen Jordan.

All too soon it was time to leave, but we all have details of next year's convention in Birmingham 7th - 9th July 2017 and I am so looking forward to seeing everyone then. Thank you very much to Tricia and all our Board members for an excellent Convention. I really value the opportunity to learn new techniques, socialise with other members and most importantly, be part of such a welcoming, inclusive, positive community.

Contact Form

Tweets by @purlemma

Follow by Email

About Me

I am an enthusiastic and creative knitter with a strong interest in the design and technical aspects of knitting. In this regard, I am proud to be a contributor to magazines such as The Knitter, Simply Knitting and Knit Today and a designer for Yarn Stories.
As an active member of the Knitting & Crochet Guild, I regularly contribute articles to the Guild publication, Slipknot. You can always find me on the Guild Stand at events like the Knitting and Stitching Show, so please come along and say hello!
As well as being an experienced knitter, I am City and Guilds qualified, having completed the Level Three Certificate and Diploma in Hand Knit Textiles.
An important part of my design research involves attending knitting events such as the Knitting and Stitching Show, The Knitting History Forum and the ‘In the Loop’ Conferences. Additionally, I find lots of inspiration at the Victoria and Albert Museum through gallery visits and participating in events, talks and study days.
On my knitting needles at the moment are new projects and designs that combine multiple techniques with innovative ideas.